August 11, 2008

Toyoko Inn has Free Internet

Toyoko Inns are pretty ubiquitous here in Japan in my limited experience.They are not the cheapest place I've spent the night at but they are fairly easy to find, have laundry service, free internet and are clean.

Actually,I must say that all in all on both my trips to Japan, the hotels here have been a generally good experience. There is one just outside of Hiroshima station called...ummm...Kanji Kanji...something Hotel that was 40 bucks and was perfectly fine.

Toyoko currently starts a roughly 60 bucks a night which is astoundingly reasonable if you are not in super-oh my-God-my-budget-exploded-parsimony-mode and are making use of the verrrrry sketchy cyber cafe option. Even then, when you're in Kyushu, burned out, a little sick and have popped your hip out of joint, the blue Toyoko sign is a welcome one indeed and 60-120 bucks is money very, very well spent.

A note on Japanese hotel lights....

Note that this may be universal now, but I'm a homebody, so, if this is redundant information, bear with me.

When you enter the room...there is a keyhole or little notch in a lightswitch panel next to the door. If it is a keyhole use the room key on it to turn on the lights...if it is a little square (at a Toyoko for instance) put the square keyfob in the opening.

This will turn on the lights.

Do not close the door, plunging yourself into stygian blackness, then trip, become utterly disoriented and wander around vainly flipping switches while whacking your legs and feet painfully in the dark.

Haha! My roomie and I had a similar experience in China. Apparently it's the norm there to put your card key into a switch just inside the room in order to turn on the electricity, and in most cases the air. This causes two problems: First, when you come back from a long, hot day on the Great Wall... your room is also 8 million degrees... and Two, it makes it EXCESSIVELY likely that in your over-run, jet-lagged morning stupors you'll completely lock yourself out of the room. *fails*

So fear not, you're not the only one to run across such unmarked travelling blunders.

Faith

Posted by: Faith at Tue Aug 12 07:22:29 2008 (HCcHe)

2
There was nothing like that in Touganeya, but they did have redundant control panel at bed's head, which allowed to switch off the lights without getting up.